Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s arsenal. With an incredible ROI of 4,400%, there’s simply no reason not to use it. That being said, it’s an art that requires precise strategies. After all, people get tons of emails each day. How are you going to convince them to open yours and click through?

Join us as we look 20 different tips you can apply to your marketing today. These tips will help you increase both of these powerful metrics and skyrocket your email marketing success.

20 Tips For Improving All Aspects of Your Email Marketing

These tips will help you improve more than just your open rates and your click-throughs. They were improve all aspects of your email marketing as you strive to reach as many people as possible with your professional and well-written emails. Let’s take a look!

1. Test Delivery Times

Your first step should be to find out what times are best for your audience. With vastly different schedules, you can’t just adhere to studies that throw out an arbitrary time. Your situation will be different, so test a variety of times to find out which ones are best for you.

You’ll see which times lead to better metrics, so watch for these trends.

2. Resend Unopened Emails

Unopened emails aren’t the end of the world. In fact, a simple tweak could turn that metric around. Instead of throwing away emails that didn’t get opened, revisit them to see if there’s something you can improve.

Sometimes a simple change to the subject line or modifying the body of the email is all you need to do.

3. Email New Contacts Within 24 Hours

There’s a very small window to email new contacts, and it’s usually about 24-hours. You can measure their overall engagement by offering a bonus or a thank you after they’ve signed up for your newsletter. This will help set expectations for the future.

4. Send Emails From Real People

People are more likely to open an email from a person, not a company. Generic senders usually mean spam, so people just instinctively gloss over them. Instead, send your emails from a professional email with a person’s name and your company’s domain.

5. Segment Your List

Segmenting your email list is a great way to organize your contacts into categories that help you better personalize your messages. Try dividing up your list based on things like gender, how recently they purchased something, or when they signed up.

6. Cut Out Spam Trigger Words

There are billions of emails that get flagged as spam every single day. These emails never get read or opened. People are inherently afraid of spam because it can easily carry viruses. Common spam words include things like “earn per week,” “no credit check,” and “winning,” so be sure to research the keywords you don’t want to use in your emails.

7. Make Your Emails Mobile Responsive

A good majority of emails are opened on mobile devices. This is good, because people check their emails very often on their phones, but it also means you’re dealing with shorter attention spans. If your emails aren’t mobile responsive, users will most likely skip over them because they’re too hard to read.

Test your emails on mobile devices before you hit send to be sure they appear thing right way.

8. Deliver a Clear CTA

Your emails will always have a purpose. Define this purpose to your readers quickly and without muddling the message. Tell them exactly what you want from them to encourage click-troughs.

9. Throw in a Video

Videos are easy to consume and always grab attention. Try placing one in your email to increase click-throughs by linking to your landing page through the video.

10. Write Interesting Subject Lines

Your subject lines are the gatekeepers of your emails. They need to be clear, concise, and to the point. Don’t use spammy words, but do create curiosity. Offer a value proposition, like a discount, to help encourage them as well.

11. Keep it Short

Don’t let your emails, or your subject line, rattle on. You want them to be as short and sweet as possible. The best way to think about this is to treat it like a conversation. Break it up, so it’s easy to read as well.

12. Use Custom Social Media Links

Instead of asking people to forward your emails, it’s time to embrace social media. Create custom social sharing links in your emails with things like pre-written tweets and other ideas that make sharing your emails easier for recipients.

13. Add Links to Your Images

Another small, but important change you can make, are links on your images. This frees up links in your actual content and gives you the ability to use your images as the button for your CTA.

14. Add Alt-Text To Your Images

By default, many email clients will block images unless the user specifies that they can be displayed. If your pictures aren’t displayed correctly, users could easily miss your message. This is where alt-text comes in. If your pictures aren’t being shown, the alt-text appears to give them an idea of what the picture is, thus preserving the message.

15. Avoid Background Images

For the same reason that alt-text is important, background images should be avoided at all costs. Since many email clients will block pictures, if you build your email on a background image foundation, you run the risk of completely losing any effect from your emails.

16. Add Social Media Buttons

Many marketers treat social media and email like they’re two different things, but they can easily work together if you let them. One such example, is adding social media sharing buttons to your emails. These can open up the opportunity for people to visit and follow your social media pages, while also spreading the word about your email marketing. A win-win for sure.

17. Optimize Plain Text

Some people won’t get fancy HTML-enabled emails. Instead, they’ll just see the plain text version. If you have a lot going on in your emails, this can make everything look really messy in a plain text format. Prepare for this scenario by optimizing and cleaning up the plain text before sending your emails.

18. Preview Emails Before Sending

Before you send your emails off to countless people, be sure to check them with a live preview. You’d be surprised how many marketers skip this step, but it’s crucial to catch any last-minute issues before you click that send button and let it out into the wild.

19. Create Urgency

People will often leave an email, saying they’ll come back to it later, but oftentimes they don’t. If you want them to stay and click-through, you need to create a sense of urgency. You can do this by offering limited time promotions, and using words that spur action. If your message comes across as too casual, readers will abandon it and move on to something else.

20. Grab Their Attention

Just like a sense of urgency, you need to grab the reader’s attention as well. This is usually done through the subject line, which needs to be short and concise. Try addressing the person by name, using verbs, and other power words that catch the eye.

Final Thoughts

Email marketing is a powerful tool for marketers. Harnessing it properly involves using tips like these to grab attention and convince readers to open and click-through your emails. How do you improve your email marketing? Let us know in the comments!

Author Bio: Maddie Klein is a digital marketer with over a decade of experience, and fully believes in the power of email.